Driving from Reno to Las Vegas Nevada Saturday, my wife went to pass a slower vehicle. As the front tires ran over the 'rumble strip' marking the centerline of the road, the vibration apparently affected the power steering system. A "Service Power Steering" message appeared on the dash and the power steering assist was suddenly gone causing very heavy manual steering. We pulled to the side of the road and called Onstar for a Volt Adviser. She set us up with an appointment with a Las Vegas Chevy dealer then we continued the 80 miles to Tonopah to get us out of the desert. All this time we did not shut the car down as it was still drive-able although hard to steer. We did not want to risk the vehicle not starting back up and being stuck waiting for a tow truck to come 200 miles from Las Vegas while we waited in the desert. We spent the night in Tonopah and the next morning, when the car started up, the power assist was back. My assumption is whatever monitors the power steering was confused by the rapid vibration from the rumble strip and interpreted it as a power steering system failure and shut the assist down. We decided not to go to the Vegas dealer but see what happens (car continues to work fine) and if necessary, return to our selling dealer if there is any further issues. Anyone else experience this?
garymunson
Refer to the forum "similar threads" block at the bottom of this page. Amazing how that feature works! 
Same thing here twice. Once caused by playing with the OBD2 port and again for no apparent reason near some military radar. Noth times turning the car off and waiting reset it. Both times Onstar reported a communication failure between CPU's.
I had this issue happen twice last month under the exact same conditions and on the same stretch of highway. I traveled from El Paso TX to Tucson AZ on I-10 on two separate occasions. The first time I was with a friend and I was driving back from Tucson. I lost power steering crossing rumble strips in a construction zone and the same error message was displayed. I pulled over and "rebooted" the car but the issue remained. 30 minutes later, I pulled over in Las Cruces, NM, turned the car off for 5 minutes, restarted and the issue was gone. A couple of weeks later on the same stretch of road with my wife driving, she lost power steering while crossing the same rumble strips. We pulled off at the next exit for gas and subway, got back into the car and as expected the issue was gone. My car was in for the rear hatch strut recall earlier this year and imagine if there was an update for this issue it would have been performed then.
What PSI are those who have had this issue running? Higher PSIs are good for fuel economy but may contribute to NVH problems...I run approximately 42psi cold.
What PSI are those who have had this issue running? Higher PSIs are good for fuel economy but may contribute to NVH problems...I run approximately 42psi cold.
Had same issue in my 2012 volt (intermittent failure of steering power assist, with much increased force required to steer the car). Saw many posts about this problem, many mentioning a lose power connection at the fuse connector. Took to the dealer and they replaced a "steering gear" per special coverage bulletin 14232A, which provides coverage thru 150k miles. Part cost $1300 (we did not have to pay this, since covered by this bulletin). Part is required only for 2011 and 2012 volts. For 2013+, just needs software update. Interesting comment in the bulletin is the problem happens after driving straight for a long period of time, as consistent with comments above.
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
